English Rose
by Chandler1200
Summary: A run of the mill business trip to London leads Rosalie Hale into a world she never knew existed. With the guidance of an old friend and the mysteries of new aquaintences, will she be able to return to the life she left behind?


**Author's Notes: We don't own any part of the Twilight universe. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**This story is a collaboration between myself and the incredible CorvidCoccinelle. It's the product of a rather involved conversation that involved a lot of "what ifs".**

**This is a drastic departure from EverClear and will not be for everyone. Have no worries, EverClear is not being put to the back burner. It will still finish as scheduled.**

**After Chapter 1, all further postings of this story will be under the penname the Lamb and the Lion. Chapter 2 is already up, so click over and keep reading.**

**Hope you enjoy and leave us a review. We're dying to see what you guys think of this.**

Chapter 1

RPOV

"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please," the regal voice of the stewardess rang through the cool cabin of the first class section of the 747. The precise British accent made the mundane words of her landing instructions seem much more important as I looked up toward the uniformed brunette at the front of the plane. "Let me be the first to welcome you to London. We will be arriving at Heathrow in approximately fifteen minutes and will begin departure shortly thereafter. Whether you're visiting our fair city for business or pleasure, we hope that you enjoy your stay and we thank you for flying British Airways."

I shifted in the plush oversized seat, my right foot screaming the tell-tale signs of lack of circulation by quietly torturing me with the tiny phantom pricks of pins and needles. I reached for my purse, stowed as requested beneath my seat, and searched for my compact. After a brief search and the discovery of the zip drive I had so desperately looked for before I left my office Thursday evening, I found what I was looking for and flipped it open.

The mirrored reflection revealed a small smudge of mascara at the corner of my right eye and a few strands of hair that had matted themselves together as I'd slept on the long flight but otherwise I didn't look to horrendous. With a few swipes of a tissue and a rugged pull of the mutinous hairs, I was fairly happy that I would at least not frighten small children once we left the confines of the plane.

London. I'd traveled quite a bit with my job but I'd never had the pleasure of visiting London until now. I was a design engineer for BMW and as such, I had been to training facilities and manufacturing plants all over Europe. I'd spent two months in Germany just over a year ago working with the elite engineering team responsible for the M3 in preparation for the North American production launch but that trip had literally been all work. This trip, while still labor intensive as I was to coordinate with the quality control operations team on the design problems they were encountering, would afford a much more relaxed schedule. I was so excited as I watched the large windowed terminal pull into view as we taxied down the runway that I felt as if I were a child at Christmas.

The city I had dreamt of visiting and exploring as a teenager was laid before me in its timeless grace as the wheels of the jet ground to a halt. I had four weeks before I would have to return to America. Four weeks to visit the Thames and tour the Tower of London. Four weeks to see Buckingham Palace and Big Ben and walk along the scared cobblestone of the East West End in the footsteps of Jack the Ripper. I had every intention of being the consummate tourist every moment that I wasn't at the plant or sleeping and I could hardly wait to start, jet lag or not.

And I had a tour guide I'd not seen in years waiting for my call to let him know that I'd arrived.

After an uneventful trip through customs, I finally claimed my ridiculously large bag from the turn stile and heaved both it and my carry-on through the crowed terminal toward the exit to the streets. With every step, my anticipation grew more pronounced and I realized I was grinning madly as I navigated the hurried businessmen and frazzled families that filled the hallways. I stopped briefly to try and locate the signs that would direct me to a rental car kiosk, as I couldn't pick up my company car until I reported to the plant in two days, when I heard a familiar voice calling out above the din of the busy airport.

"Rose! Rosalie Hale!"

Stunned, I looked about madly for the source of the friendly voice calling to me, sure that I had to be mistaken. But as my eyes found the large shop filled with magazines and other travel essentials they also found him.

Leaning against the wall directly beside the news stand, his insanely disheveled bronze hair longer and shaggier than I'd ever seen it and grinning that wicked crooked grin stood Edward, a small cardboard sign in his hand with the word "Hale" scrawled across it.

"Edward?" I yelped as I hurried toward him. As I called to him, he'd pushed off the wall and was stalking toward me with an equally excited gait to his step.

We reached each other after mere seconds and I threw my arms around his neck as he wrapped his own arms around my waist and lifted me off the ground. It was the first time I'd ever traveled anywhere, business trip or vacation that I'd ever had someone meet me at my destination and the experience was absolutely wonderful. With a tight squeeze, he set me down and pulled away an arm's length to look at me.

"Do my eyes deceive me or have you grown even more beautiful?" he said in the smooth voice that now held just the slightest trace of an English accent.

"What are you doing here Edward? You were supposed to wait for me to call you? How did you even know which flight I would be on?"

"There are only so many flights that leave South Carolina for London my dear. I didn't need to call Scotland Yard to track down the information. And as for what I'm doing here…I couldn't wait to see you." With the sincere words that made my cheeks flush, he leaned in and kissed me. It wasn't the passionate kiss of reunited lovers but it wasn't the chaste kiss of friends either. I guess that summed up what Edward and I were, even after all the years we'd gone without seeing each other.

With the gentlemanly manners I remembered from so long ago, he pulled the handle to my suitcase in one hand and offered me his arm. With a giggle silly laugh, I wrapped my hand around his elbow, leaned my head against his shoulder like a silly school girl and allowed him to lead me out of the airport. I followed him blindly through the maze of the enormous building and out into a short term parking garage that towered over the airport. As he led us to the far end, I couldn't stifle the chuckle that escaped my lips as he made a bee line for the shiny Volvo parked at the very edge of the lot.

"God, Edward! Don't you ever change?" I asked through the peals of laughter grew louder with every step I took.

"What can I say? When I find something I like, I stick to it," he said somewhat sheepishly as he unlocked the door and pushed a button on his remote to pop the trunk. Edward had driven the exact same car for as long as I'd known him. Same make, same model, same color. It was beyond hysterical that the gorgeous man beside me had driven a soccer dad's car for almost a decade now.

We pulled out of the parking garage and into the manic traffic of the London streets. I stared with wide-eyed fascination as the city grew closer and closer. The thoughts of all I wanted to do while here played through my mind in rapid succession as I pressed my forehead against the glass, drinking in the most mundane details of the city I'd longed to explore for so many years.

After a few minutes of silence, I turned to look at my unexpected chauffer behind the wheel. Edward had always been a beautiful man. The fresh-from-bed hair, the soulful emerald eyes and the dazzling smile were all as familiar as my own reflection. He was paler now than he'd been the last time I'd seen him, more than three years ago but it suited him. Everything about him screamed sex in one way or another, whether it was the easy strut of his walk or the devastating stare that he could level at any poor unsuspecting female, preteen to grandmother, in order to get his way. He had the very beginnings of laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and even at the age of twenty-nine, he had a trace of silver just above his ears. He was older, yes, but the changes only added to his appeal.

Edward and I had met his senior and my junior year of college. We were both alike in so many ways. Ambitious, studious and unrelenting in our pursuit of our goals, we had clashed like fire and gunpowder in a political science class that we had shared. We had also become fierce friends somewhere between the debates on constitutional equality and cheap pitchers of beer on weekend nights at the lone bar near campus. Edward was a musician. His passion and talent knew no bounds. He was equally at home behind a grand piano playing Bach or Beethoven as he was sitting on a stool in a bar playing Van Morrison on his acoustic guitar. It was exactly such a scenario as the later that had led us to become lovers after six months of getting to know each other.

It was from Edward that I had learned the true nature of my sexuality. I had never, for even a moment, considered that another world beyond the norm of "usual" or "vanilla" sex even existed. Much less that it would be so appealing to me. The green eyed confident man that challenged my every word had opened the door to a world where pleasure and pain existed on the same plane, where restraints and bindings were erotic and where lowering my guard freed my body to experience heights I'd never even experienced.

Edward was a Dom.

He'd been living as a Dom for more than two years when I met him and had recognized my repressed nature almost from the beginning of our friendship. It was through him that I discovered my submissive side. It was the missing piece of myself that I'd struggled to find for so long. The discovery of and initiation into the world he'd presented for me had made me complete, comfortable. Whole. He'd never been my Master but he had given me the tools with which I needed to carve my own road to fulfillment.

Our relationship, while perfection behind closed doors, had not worked when we were not in our assumed roles. But we shared a bond that made his friendship invaluable to me throughout the years, even in the wake of our prolonged separation.

"What is that smile for?" he asked, although the look on his face suggested he already knew exactly what I was thinking. He had always been able to read me like an open book. If such things had been possible, I would have sworn he could actually read my mind at times.

"Just thinking how good it is to see you," I answered honestly as I reached for his hand across the console of the car. He laced his fingers through mine before bringing them to his lips for a brief kiss to my knuckles.

The easy silence of the ride was broken with the simple gesture. As we wove our way through the city, we talked of our lives for the last three years. I was thrilled to hear that his talent had caught the attention of several major labels and that he was on the cusp of recording his own album. He seemed equally happy to hear that my career as a design engineer was taking off as well.

I had met ridicule and incredulity at almost every turn when I began my studies as an engineer. It was very much a man's world, particularly in the automotive field, and I had fought tooth and nail to achieve every bit of my success. Only the maddeningly argumentative man that I shared one of my few elective courses with during school had whole-heartedly encouraged me to pursue my dream. When I had beaten the forty other applicants for my current position, Edward had sent me not flowers as congratulations but a huge basket of every conceivable type of drafting equipment. I had howled with laughter as I pulled the graph paper, pencils and protractors out of the beautifully woven basket. It was that type of encouragement that had meant the most to me throughout our friendship.

We found ourselves perched at a high table inside a pub half an hour later, eating a traditional fish and chips lunch and guzzling Guinness. He knew, from my endless rambling about my desired travel experience, that this was exactly how I wanted to begin my time in England.

"So what exactly are you working on while you're here?" he asked as I took a long sip of the bitter ale that I'd insisted on ordering even as he recommended a lighter brew to me.

"The production line is having issues with the rear suspension and the trunk…"

"The boot," he interrupted.

"Excuse me?"

"First lesson in speaking proper English while you're here is that it's a trunk in America. It's a boot over here. If you call it a trunk they will look at you like you have horns."

"Oh, well thanks for the tip. Anyway, they are having some issues with the production line and I was on the original design team. So they want me to meet with quality control and production to find and correct the problems."

"Sounds technical and way beyond anything that I could even begin to discuss, so how about this? Is it a positive thing to have been sent over here to fix this or is this some type of punishment?" he asked through a mouth full of deep fried cod.

"Oh, it's quite the positive thing to have been sent over. If this project is successful, it almost locks me in for a promotion to the head of Research and Design."

"Well, then cheers," he said as he lifted his glass. "To the best goddamn designer I know. May you wipe the floor with the asses of everyone who stands in your way!"

"Cheers," I said as we thrust our glasses together somewhat harshly, sending a slosh of liquid over both our hands.

"So, what is on the agenda Mr. Cullen? I want to spend all day tomorrow doing the tourist thing with my newly accented guide. By the way, the accent will do wonders to drop the panties of your unsuspecting prey. Very nice."

"I hadn't actually thought of it that way but thanks for the advice," he said in an exaggerated tone. "As for what is on the agenda that is up to you. I have a suggestion but it is your discretion."

"I'm intrigued. Please go on."

"Let me ask you Rose, are you still with Royce?"

"No," I said as I felt the angry heat rise on my neck. "Royce wanted a slave with no mind or limits. That relationship came to an end very quickly."

"Did he hurt you?" he said in a tense voice. The flash of ire in his eyes was both endearing and unnerving.

"No but only because I fought back. It's been over for a long time Edward. So about your suggestion?"

"Well, there is a club that I have frequented for the last year or so that I would love to show you. Are you game?"

The tenor to his voice told me that he was slipping into that familiar role. His posture had straightened and his jaw was tight. His body language alone answered every question I might have had as to what type of club he wanted to take me to and I knew that the words of my response alone would tell him that I understood completely.

"Yes sir," I said softly, my eyes downcast.

"Did you bring appropriate attire?" His voice had dropped into the velvet tone of domination that I craved on so many levels. I had not thought that our visit would take this course. The last time we had spoken of it, he'd had a collared sub. But I knew that if he was suggesting this type of evening for us that relationship must have ended. Edward was staunchly committed to his collared subs.

"No sir."

"Well then, it seems we need to make a detour before we head to my flat."

Five hours later, we prepared to leave the gorgeous apartment that Edward had near Hyde Park. The view from the large windows was something out of my dreams. I stood at the window staring at the city beyond in my new corset and micro miniskirt. Edward had always preferred me in red so it was no surprise that the leather tightly bound around my torso was a deep crimson. The moment I heard the click of his bedroom door, I grasped my hands behind my back and dropped my chin toward my chest. I heard his footsteps behind me but I didn't move.

"I did train you well didn't I?" he said from closer behind me than I expected. The rigid set of my spine in the tightly laced leather made it easier to hold my tongue.

"Turn around and look at me."

I did as he said and got my first look of Edward the Dom in more than a half dozen years. He was dressed in all black. The perfectly cut shirt stretched across his chest in such a way as to leave no doubt of the perfection that lay beneath. His leather pants were obviously custom made, as were most of his "playtime" implements. A small panel at the groin promised easy access to the unbelievable package that lie beneath.

"A few ground rules before we leave. I am not your Dom or Master but for the evening, I expect you to call me sir. You do not need to ask permission to speak or interact with anyone unless it would require you to leave my side. We will most likely meet several friends of mine. I expect you to show them the proper respect. I, in turn, will not expect you to participate in anything tonight. I do not have the authority to command you. I will respect your wishes and desires as to any activities you wish to partake in, so long as your safety is assured. Do we understand each other?"

I held my tongue.

"You may speak," he said with a smirk.

"Yes sir. Thank you sir."

"Then come my lovely. Let me show you my London."

The club that he drove us to was unlike anything I'd ever been to. The building itself was massive. As he led us toward the door, he placed his hand at the small of my back. I instantly dropped my head upon contact and heard the low chuckle from beside me. The thundering music enveloped us the moment he opened the door and guided us inside. From my view of the floor, swirls of lights in every color shifted from pattern to pattern as he guided us further into the belly of the structure.

"Look up Rose," he said softly.

The sights that meet my eyes were unlike anything I'd ever seen or even imagined. Bodies in every conceivable state of undress writhed against each other. Fetishes I had only ever read of were on full display all around the club. I stared in fascination as a beautiful bald woman wearing a strap on dildo simulated sex with a blow up doll atop a platform in the far right corner of the room. Two men in g-strings and collars crawled on their hands and knees in front of a stunning black man in full Victorian lace and silk, his leash for his two slaves in one hand and a drink in the other. It was carnal lust and hedonism of the highest degree in every corner of the building. But there was a loving acceptance to the atmosphere. There were no judgmental looks or turned up noses at the personal expressions of sexuality that surrounded us from all sides.

We found a small booth near the rear of the room and sat quietly as Edward allowed me to absorb the visions in front of me. I fingered the wine glass he'd sat before me in restless anticipation of what the evening held in store. We had only been seated for about five minutes when a woman moving very deliberately towards us caught my eye.

She was hands down the most incredibly beautiful woman I'd ever seen. She was dressed in a second skin vinyl, or maybe latex, high necked top and barely there black skirt. She wore thigh high boots that accentuated her voluptuous curves. Her dark hair was piled high on her head in an elegant twist, wild wisps framing her painfully beautiful face. Her flawless porcelain skin was pale and dramatic against the bold color of her ebony hair. There was an unmistakable presence about her as she moved with purpose through the crowd.

As she neared the table we occupied, I knew without a word that she was a Mistress. My chin fell to my chest in respect as the erotic smell of her drifted in on the charged air.

"Edward Cullen," she breathed in the most elegant tone I'd ever heard. If aristocracy had a definitive sound, her voice was it.

"Laura. I was hoping I would see you tonight," Edward answered in a tone I wasn't sure I'd ever heard from him. I couldn't even place what it was that his voice held but it was frighteningly erotic.

"What do we have here? How could you possibly have hidden such beauty?" she purred as she slid into the seat next to me. The very air between us felt electrified simply by her presence. I closed my eyes and swallowed, trying to calm my racing heart before it thundered out of my chest. I could not make sense of my reaction to the stimulating woman beside me but something deep within my body came more and more alive with every second she was near me.

"Rose," Edward said sternly. "Look up. I have someone I want you to meet."

I lifted my eyes and was met with the most alluring stare I'd ever come across. There was an ancient knowledge behind the shining irises of the woman before me. It was almost hypnotic the way her gaze held me.

"Rosalie Hale," Edward's voice caressed, "may I present Lady Laura Ashton."


End file.
